Midnight
by Toasterman
Summary: "The titan leans in, pushing him lower. His legs lock, every muscle in his body goes rigid. His bones are on fire. It's the hardest thing he has ever done, but he stops it. He stops a god incarnate, and for a moment, that god looks at him and truly sees what stands against him. A man who cannot break. A man who could do this all day." A Fourth of July one-shot. Infinity War based.


Midnight

"He's coming."

Rogers hears Vision, but he doesn't need to be told. The whole of the jungle changes tenor. The birds go silent. The wind dies. The trees are hushed. The world holds its breath—a drum waiting for its beating.

He looks at Wanda. Her eyes are wide. She feels it, too. He suddenly realizes how young she is, how out of her depth she must be. All that power, and she's scared out of her mind.

He activates his comm. bead. "Everyone on my position. We've got incoming."

Reality warps, folding in on itself, a pit of deepest black from beyond space appears in the Wakandan jungle, and through it steps a nightmare. Wisps of bent world-stuff fall off his shoulders as he emerges. He is huge, powerful, thick violet hide binding cords of muscle, his armor of burnished gold.

Rogers sees him all at once, but focuses on his eyes most of all. He expected to see insanity, but he does not. Instead, he sees something far more disturbing. He sees the surety of a burdened hero, a man convinced of his rightness, and who will go to any length to see his rightness through.

A man who would just cut the wire, says the memory of a friend.

Rogers doesn't wait. He doesn't try to speak to the thing, doesn't try to reason with it. He runs forward, toward the invader from the pit of hell itself. He kicks off the jungle floor, launching himself toward the thing's head, arm outstretched.

((()))

The exam room is small, and gives little privacy aside from a white curtain. Rogers sits on the exam table, undoing the cuffs of his shirt. He is small, his shoulders are small, his chest is small, his legs are small. His asthma acts up. He is sick all the time, but he deals with it. He plans his days around how far he can go from the house in case his small body and weak immune system betrays him. It betrays him frequently.

He keeps himself as fit as he can. He reads constantly and sketches in his free time and most of all just wants to get out of the city. He wants to be more. He wants to help.

The doctor checks his paperwork and quickly excuses himself before stepping out. It's unusual. It's illegal to falsify your enlistment form, reminds the sign.

Rogers gets off the table, grabs his jacket. He has to get out of here. The curtain opens, and an MP steps through. A big guy with a hard face. Rogers freezes. A second later, a smaller man enters, an older man. A kind face.

"You can go," the man says, to the MP. The MP goes. Someone in charge, then.

The man's name is Erskine, and in time, Rogers will call him a friend. A mentor. A father where he had none. He asks him a question. Does he want to kill Nazis? It's a test.

((()))

His punch doesn't connect. The alien glances at him and gestures, and Rogers is knocked sideways, a pillar of force slamming him aside. His body digs a gouge in the dirt. His face scrapes the ground. It hurts.

Rhodes tries next, then Sam. Banner gives it his all. Nothing works. The alien is unstoppable—everything Banner warned of, and everything they feared.

Rogers watches it. Can't go in high, he realizes. If he sees me, he can hurt me. Gotta keep below the radar, out of sight until it's absolutely necessary. Wanda needs time. Die if you have to. Jump on the grenade. Stop the bastard.

Do you want to kill Nazis? he was asked, in another life.

He gets up and runs back in, sliding under the giant's guard. He reaches out and slashes the monster's leg. Bring him down, get him low. Thanos drops to one knee. Second punch. Slash across the gut. Double him over. He's a tyrant, a dictator and a killer. A bully.

He didn't want to kill anyone. He just doesn't like bullies, no matter where they're from.

Third hit. Rogers punches up, pushing off the dirt, putting everything he can into it, a straight right aimed for the jaw, and for a brief moment in that African jungle, a kid from Brooklyn defies a titan, and causes him the briefest amount of pain.

It's worth it.

The gauntlet comes down, shockingly fast. He can't get out of the way, so he catches it. His hands wrap around the fingers. He stops it. The titan leans in, pushing him lower. His legs lock, every muscle in his body goes rigid. His bones are on fire. It's the hardest thing he has ever done, but he stops it.

He stops a god incarnate, and for a moment, that god looks at him and truly sees what stands against him. A man who cannot break. A man who could do this all day.

Captain America roars into the face of death, defiant. It is an insane action, a superhuman effort. A testament to the best of mankind in its direst hour.

It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter at all.

The titan's other hand swings around and knocks him flat. Pain blisters. The first Avenger is the last to fall.

Darkness.

((()))

Minutes pass and everything changes. The titan is gone but his effect is felt. His oldest friend vanishes in front of him. Flesh turns to ash which turns to nothing. His knees are weak. He drops to the ground. Bucky's rifle lays where it fell, its breach jammed open, empty. It's as if he were never there, never existed at all. Utterly eliminated. Like Peggy. Like Erskine and Howard and Duggan and all the rest. Gone like dreams shed from a morning mind.

He looks around. Screams reach him from the plain below like wind rolling backwards, sucking in as the world is harrowed. The magnitude of it settles in on his soul. Ice in his veins. He doesn't know what to do.

"Oh God," he says.

 **Author's Note: This is my seventh annual Fourth of July Cap story. This year, I just wanted to convert my favorite part of Infinity War into prose and see what came out. Hope you enjoyed it.**


End file.
